Splash-screen, elisp files compression, gdb usage

From:

ESCOUFLAIRE Pierre-Louis

Subject:

Splash-screen, elisp files compression, gdb usage

Date:

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:18:40 +0200

User-agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4.3) Gecko/20040924

Hello,
While using emacs-22.1, I found the following problems:
1- splash-screen '(setq inhibit-startup-message nil)':
. calling emacs (no arguments):
A splash-screen appears, which is perfectly normal.
. calling emacs <filename>:
A splash-screen appears, which is a regression from emacs-21.
emacs waits for an input event to open associated buffer.
THIS IS NOT A BUG but RATHER A SUGGESTION.

I think that users requesting a file expect that file to be opened
directly without having the splash-screen. I know that setting the
'inhibit-startup-message' to 't' will avoid this problem but some
configuration are using this splash-screen and can be annoying in
certain cases (such as loading an elisp diff script in emacs from
command line).
Newcomers to emacs are generally using 'emacs' with no arguments on
their first use of it so they would see the splash-screen. Plus, they
still can use the Help menu for tutorial. Thus, I do NOT think it is a
good idea to display this splash-screen when given a <filename>.

2- elisp files compression:
. elisp source files are compressed on emacs 'make install'.
Navigating through gzipped elisp source files is transparent.
Byte-compiling gzipped elisp source files is not.
THIS HAPPENS ONLY FOR FILES WITH DEPENDENCIES.
THIS COULD BE AN ENHANCEMENT FOR THE NEXT RELEASE.

One could need to patch an emacs-provided elisp source file that has
been gzipped and byte-compilation may fail if dependencies exist for
this file.
Should it not be possible to have '--no_compress' (or look-alike) option
to the 'configure' script so that problem for compilation transparency
could be avoided?

3- gdb
3.1- gdb default behavior
. GDB '--annotate=3' option is automatically added.
. GDB finds the first executable in the current directory
THIS IS NOT A BUG but RATHER A SUGGESTION.

Default GDB behavior is to add the '--annotate=3' option that is unused
by several GDB users. In our case, it has also made emacs freezing while
typing a simple command such as 'help'.
Default GDB behavior is to find the first file matching 'execute' mode
on in the current directory. The problem is that it also finds scripts
(such as shell scripts) that are not 'debug-able'. I heard that emacs
GDB had an enhancement to allow perl scripts debugging but it should not
interfere with others. Perhaps an option/variable/... could help to
disable this feature (e.g, variable gud-matching-executables-search).

3.2- gdb navigation
. GDB does not (always) navigate through source code.
up/down/breakpoints/... do not switch to source code.
Here is a small/simple example:
-- main.c
#include "pouet.h"
int main () {
pouet ();
}
-- pouet.c
#include "stdio.h"
void pouet () {
printf ("pouet-separate\n");
}
-- pouet.h
void pouet ();
--------------------
$ emacs
-> M-x gdb RET pouet RET
(gdb) b pouet
(gdb) r
(gdb) up
(gdb) do
(gdb)
Thanks a lot for your time and attention.
Regards,
Pierre-Louis ESCOUFLAIRE
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